UN’s Sustainable Development Goals

The United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the world’s call to action on the most pressing challenges and opportunities facing humanity and the natural world, and we’re playing a leading role in tackling them.

The quality and scale of our impact against the SDGs has been ranked first in the UK and second in Europe in the Times Higher Education University Impact Rankings (2020).

How are we helping tackle the UNs Sustainable Development Goals?

Through our research

We’re providing the evidence-base, knowledge, solutions, innovations, technologies and pathways to support the implementation of the SDGs. We’ve contributed 232,484 research publications across all 17 SDGs over the past decade – representing 4% of the UK’s research on the goals. Our five research beacons – advanced materials, cancer, energy, global inequalities and industrial biotechnology – are examples of our pioneering work tackling the world’s biggest challenges.

Through our teaching

We’re committed to empowering students with the knowledge, skills and opportunities to understand and address all of the SDGs. We do this through:

• providing an accessible education for our local, national and international communities;
• offering our students access to programmes such as ‘Creating a sustainable world: 21^st century challenges and the Sustainable Development Goals’;
• encouraging them to engage with our Stellify initiative;
• building social responsibility opportunities into the curriculum. 

Through our public engagement

We hold a prestigious gold watermark for public engagement and aim to involve and inspire local and global communities with the SDGs. We involve more than 1.3 million members of the public each year with issues pertinent to the SDGs through our cultural institutions. We focus on challenges including science, democracy, poverty, health and wellbeing, sustainable cities and gender equality.

Through our campus operations

As one of our region’s largest anchor institutions we’re addressing the SDGs through our operations, policies and processes. We’re a living wage accredited employer, England’s most LGBT-inclusive university, hold quality marks for gender, disability and racial equality and enact responsible methods of procurement and investment. 

How the University is supporting the SDGs